DPMV, the German Plastic Modeling Association, has held its first nationwide meeting on the weekend of 14/15 April, at Fuldatal near Kassel, located centrally in Germany.
The event was held in a school gym; the local volunteer firefighters did a great job in furnishing the place, in providing catering and other services required. The unusually warm weather did limit the number of visitors (despite free admission) and made things uncomfortable on the sunnier side of the hall, yet as a meeting of modelers this was a great show with a very friendly and helpful atmosphere. It was THE best opportunity for meeting all those people you previously only knew from the internet – and enjoy it.
Revell had a large display of built kits and also of testshots, most notably to me their 1:350 Bismarck and 1:72 Gannet. It was good to see a display from Heller/Humbrol/Airfix, with the novelties from other companies such as Alanger displayed at this booth, too.
Several vendors had arrived with sizable piles of kits and accessories, paints, airbrushes and so on. Quite a number of folks left the venue laden with stacks of kit boxes.
There was a competition with about 130 entrants in 60+ categories, IIRC. The entries were collected on one side of the hall, judged at saturday and returned to their owners later that afternoon. The awards ceremony was held on sunday at 2 p.m. DPMV´s website will surely report more on this show in the future. Check out www.dpmv.de (in German)
More than 100 of us gathered at the nearby restaurant on saturday night for roast piglet, beer and chats, but there was also ample time and space for chats while gallivanting around the hall and meeting outside for food and drink under the parasols on the lawn.
The models on display covered the main branches of the hobby. There were many aircraft (prop, jet, fixed wing and rotary), lots of AFV in various scales, very many cars of all sorts, a number of dioramas, figures, SF, and last but not least the biggest turnout of ships since quite some time, as the crusty old salts amongst us remarked. There were modelers from literally all over Germany, from close to the Danish border down to lake Constance, from the Rhineland to Saxony, plus a sizable delegation from the Netherlands.
My selection of images is entirely arbritrary and not indicative of the number, scope and quality of the models on display. Sadly, I didn´t manage to photograph the model that impressed me most, although I had several chats with its builder, a very friendly guy from Saxony. That was a heavily modified Eduard strip down 1:72 Fieseler Storch, complete with steering wires, engine and all the bells and whistles you can imagine. Having once toyed with an Eduard strip down kit, I was able to grasp that guy´s achievement, skill, dedication and patience.